


Death or Paradise

by downtownfishies



Series: Ghost Stories [4]
Category: Doctor Who
Genre: Character Study, F/M, Relationship Study, Season/Series 08
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-17
Updated: 2021-02-28
Packaged: 2021-03-06 04:02:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 2,012
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25947028
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/downtownfishies/pseuds/downtownfishies
Summary: The Doctor has a new face and may even be a new person underneath.  As Clara tries to understand who he is, she starts to lose track of herself.Series 8 episode fic.
Relationships: Clara Oswin Oswald/Danny Pink, The Doctor & Clara Oswin Oswald, Twelfth Doctor & Clara Oswin Oswald, Twelfth Doctor/Clara Oswin Oswald
Series: Ghost Stories [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1763293
Comments: 2
Kudos: 15





	1. Me, Not Me

He remembers. He remembers remembering. He remembers being himself, at least a dozen selves, some pieces tucked away or smoothed over by time and pain and meddling. So, so much meddling. He remembers being her, but that was probably a dream. Still he knows her, he has always known her, even when he didn’t know that he knew her. It hadn’t occurred to him that the same might not be true for her. That Clara, who has seen more of his life than anyone, might reach her limit. Might come to a point where she couldn’t, or wouldn’t, see more. 

_Clara, my Clara_ —he has seen so many of her. There might even be more of her out there that he has yet to find. Can’t she see him? 

He knows what she’s hearing on the phone. It’s been trickling back into his mind, gradually, as he has wrestled with the question of whether to come back to her, knowing what he asked, will ask, is asking of her. He remembers it like yesterday (which it was) but also like a dream (which it wasn’t) where he speaks in a stranger’s voice and pleads with her to stay. He doesn’t need her to stay. The universe is full of not-hims to ask questions and cry at opportune moments. He sees her, and she’s just a girl, a leaf caught in the winds of time that blew her into his hurricane. She can fly away whenever she wants. Probably should. Not much left to do but get stranded in an alternate universe or turn into a singularity or something similarly distasteful. He doesn’t need her to stay, he just needs—

She steps closer, what does she see?

If she doesn’t see him, how will he know who he is?

“Thank you,” she says. Her arms around him—too close—this new self can’t be held by her the way the old one was—it pulls him back when he needs to move forward, restart, what did she see?


	2. I Know Your Type

When Clara’s grandmother asks her about that nice young man who came to Christmas dinner, Clara tells her that he moved back to Sweden. There doesn’t seem to be any other way to say it. No, she’s not torn up about it, does not require Linda’s matchmaking services, has a career and hobbies and friends, and okay, some of the hobbies and friends pale a little when one’s main pastime is time travel and one’s best friend is an alien.

And then said alien disappears and suddenly all her girlfriends have got it into their heads that she’s pining for her Swedish boyfriend, what on earth gave them that idea? (Right, she did, she had to tell them something when she didn’t answer any calls or texts for a week after Christmas on account of being stranded, multiple times, in different centuries, by the same impossible man. Five hours staring out the window of the train from Glasgow to London became a romantic whirlwind trip of Europe culminating in a dramatic breakup at the Berlin airport. She might have gone a bit overboard with the invention.) She is not pining. She is worried about a friend. She is a beautiful, single young professional, but single in the confident, self-assured way, not the I’ve-just-had-my-heart-broken-by-a-1200-year-old-time-traveler way. That would imply someone had a claim on her heart in the first place, which of course nobody ever did. Clara has a Life, and it is a pretty good one. Probably.

And then she meets Danny Pink.

She first sees him in the courtyard, training schoolchildren as if they were soldiers. It strikes her as a singularly ridiculous thing to do, but when she meets him properly, he’s cute, a little awkward. He’s nothing like the Doctor, which, as she approaches three weeks with no sign of the TARDIS, can only be a plus.

Clara is absolutely not thinking about Vastra’s admonitions regarding lovers when she asks Danny out for drinks. But she stands by her claim that she could flirt with a mountain range. A maths teacher? No trouble at all.


	3. History Is a Burden

_When did you stop believing in everything?_

_A long time ago._

Once there was a child who dreamed of adventure, but his people could only promise him war.

Once there was an old man who traveled the stars and discovered creatures that had perfected terror and death.

Once there was a little girl who waited all night in her garden… what good have stories ever done?

Clara walks among this so-called Robin Hood and his so-called merry so-called men with open delight and the Doctor spots a dozen ways the trap could spring. What is she doing, with her hero worship and that ridiculous dress? It’s the twelfth century, she could stand to wear something slightly more armored.

Clara, armed with nothing but a sharp stick, tries to take on an army of robot knights. Where does she pick up such absurd ideas? She’s a fragile little human, and she ought to stick to the things she’s good at, like asking him questions and keeping other humans from getting angry with him.

Clara offers no resistance when the guard hauls her away, just gives the Doctor one last exasperated look over her shoulder. He would like to believe that she shares his frustration with the buffoon chained up next to him, but perhaps the look is meant for him, too. Doesn’t she know by now that the safest place to be is by the Doctor’s side?

Unfortunately for both of them, the Doctor has not been himself lately. He is a new himself, one that is taking awhile to reveal his own nature. Squabbling rather than cooperating with a potentially useful ally, bickering instead of digging to the bottom of an intriguing mystery? Oh, surely this new him can do better than that. He can find the truth, he can save Clara from this farce of her childhood fantasies.

_What the hell are you doing?_

_Getting it wrong, again._

The Doctor maintains some skepticism about the so-called hero, which may turn out to be an ongoing flaw in this new personality of his, skepticism. Or not, who knows? He still watches Clara beside Robin Hood with a certain wariness, though she seems to have developed some ability to look after herself. The true shape of her hides behind soft skin and smiles; she is cunning and infinite. The Doctor has changed, they both knew that, but what has Clara become?


	4. You Know Why

The TARDIS doors close behind Orson Pink and Clara’s doing a funny thing with her face again, big eyes smiling and crying and questioning at the same time.

He waits for her to stop before he says, “I did have it, you know.”

“Have what?”

“That dream?”

“When?”

“Long time ago. Hand, under the bed, grabby, and all that.”

“Huh. I didn’t know you ever slept in a bed.”

This is such an absurd thing to say, he doesn't dignify it with a response.

“Come to think of it,” she adds, “I don’t know if I ever did.”

“What, sleep in a bed?”

“Have a dream like that.”

“Well, no wonder you botched the psychic transit, then.”

“I didn’t botch anything.”

“Oh, so you’ve figured out how you're connected to the Pinks, have you?”

She pauses, staring at the console. Looks at him, bites her lip. “One last favor?”

“You are pushing it,” he tells her, as if he hasn’t given into nearly every single one of her demands on this entire adventure.

“Can I use the telepathic circuits again?”

“One of these days I’ll have to teach you how to fly her properly.”

“That would imply that you know how.”

“Go on, see if she bites you this time, I don’t care.”

She sinks her hands into the console again and he watches the display shift back towards her own time. The spatial coordinates drift, circling London before setting down. The TARDIS, apparently mining from Clara’s brain, marks the spot _his house_.

Ah. It’s the date man. The man from the date.

Clara pulls her hands free and flexes her fingers. “Right. I’m gonna go freshen up.” She hurries down the steps and into the corridor.

“I don’t know what that means,” he calls after her, “and I don’t want to!”

He tests out the idea that Clara might have a boyfriend. He doesn’t like it. He tries it again. Nope, still not happy about it. Well, she’s been distracted this whole time, not taking anything seriously, making her eyes all big and shiny. Love makes people so useless. Especially humans with their chemicals and their poetry and their pop music. And she dodged every one of his questions about this man, which means he’s probably got something wrong with him. Maybe he’s tiny like she is. Possibly he’s a mime.

She returns looking much the same, possibly with some of her hairs rearranged. “Are you fresh now?” he asks. “Would you like some vegetables? Would that help?”

“Have you got vegetables?”

“No.”

“…Right. Well, I’m going. Don’t wait up, not that you ever do.”

“Don’t stay out all night,” he says, because it seems like the thing to say.

She snorts, and the twist of her mouth as she smiles reclaims some territory from her eyes. “Go to bed, Doctor. There’s nothing under it—I checked.”

There are an infinite number of beds in the TARDIS with an infinite potentiality of things underneath them, and it is truly impossible that anyone, even his impossible Clara, could have checked them all, but she’s gone before he can point this out to her. Gone to meet her human date man, probably to marry him and have babies and live out an ordinary life in the right order in 21st-century London. Which, come to think of it, has some possible implications for what has been going on with her and the Pinks. No, not an ordinary life, not Clara, even with a husband and babies and breakfast and back gardens, never Clara. But she will leave, they always leave. She has left, somewhere down the line he has already lost her and this is just him bracing for the impact.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wrote this on valentine's day


	5. A Little Detour

Psi and Saibra seem inclined to forgive the Doctor for his manipulations, especially now that he’s delivered on their hearts’ desires. No heart’s desire for Clara, technically, but watching the two creatures, last of their kind, running safe and free, is close enough. Probably. She’s not sure what she would have wished for, come to think of it.

Saibra drinks down her cure as soon as they get back to the TARDIS, but Psi is hesitant, the circuit glowing in his hand. He catches her watching.

“Now that I’ve got it,” he says, “I’m a little afraid.”

She tries to imagine what he must be feeling, knowing that there are people out there who love him, but not even remembering what it was like to have known them. _I think I must have loved them._ No wonder the prospect of losing the rest of his mind had scared him so.

_When your whole life flashes in front of you, you see people you love and people missing you._

Well, mostly she sees the Doctor.

He tells stories over takeout dinner, namedropping a truly outrageous number of historical figures and casually alluding to planets that are still in the sky thanks to him. Who is he even trying to impress? He just pulled off a heist at the most secure facility in possibly all of time and space. But she’s laughing in spite of herself.

If she ever saw her life flash before her eyes, she thinks she might see this moment.

Later, sitting down to a second dinner with Danny, he comments on her good mood, and she can’t explain it. He just saw her two hours ago, which isn’t nearly enough time to have made two new friends, come within inches of death multiple times, and saved an entire species.

“Just happy to be here,” she tells him.


End file.
